


Icarus (Fly)

by Messy_haired_bum



Series: Wrong Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Dies, Episode: s01e12 Faith, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:07:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messy_haired_bum/pseuds/Messy_haired_bum
Summary: Dean was alone, his heart was failing, and he thought that he would be alright.Or: Dean Winchester, and his time of dying.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: ... I think I made it semi-sad? Like not as sad as the first fic? It's not intentional, I assure you, but Dean is heartbreak and strength, and Dean near his death is optimism and peaceful and a general 'fuck you' attitude that just. Pick my words up and run with them. So enjoy a not-that-sad deathfic.

 

This was how it started: Heat and sulfur and a burden he was too young to have to carry.

This was how it ended: Heaven in his eyes and peace in his heart.

To be honest, did we really expect it to be any different?

\---------------------------------

Dean's luck ran out on a Wednesday, on a rawhead hunt.

Which. Just figured, really. Rawheads were supposed to be a two-man job, but Sam was off with his Normal and Dad was fucking off somewhere, leaving coordinates behind on hunts like this like he expected Dean to have picked Sam off from Stanford by now. Which Dean hadn't. Because what the fuck. Kid was living his dream, and Dean damn well ain't gonna be the one to shit on it.

Dad could go fuck himself. (Dean was bitter, very very bitter, about the ultimatum Dad had given Sam that night, and he wanted Dad to know that. Fucking "don't you come back." Fucking emotional constipation. Fucking everything.)

But the problem with that decision was that now Dean was alone when he found out that monsters turned out to be a very effective electrical conductor. And he was ankles deep in a dirty pool of water.

The agonizing moments when electricity coursed through his body could be neatly summed up by a very emphatic "fuck."

Dean had just enough time to drive himself to the nearest hospital before the world went black.

Seriously, fuck his life.

\--------------------------------

Dean was four when his world went down in flame and heartbreak.

(What happened? What happened he didn't know what happened what he saw what he had seen Mommymommy _mommy-_

"Take your brother outside as fast as you can! Now, Dean, go!"

Dean went.)

He ran out with his brother in his arms, his Dad's order firmly fixed in his head, and something like chains and shackles began to settle on his little shoulders.

He whispered "It's okay, Sammy", and felt the locks clicked in to place.

\----------------------------------

Dean blinked awake what felt like a lifetime later, mind struggling to catalog his surroundings. Antiseptic smell. Glaring white. Steady beeps of machines.

Hospital.

Trying to - urgh - lift his head up, Dean casted his gaze around the small room he was temporarily confined to. He had a brief moment of confusion - what happened? - before it all returned with the force of a sledgehammer and fuck, Dean was not appreciating that shit right now.

Fucking rawheads.

He just hoped that the kids made it back to their parents safely.

Which he really - urgh - should - fuck - skip town if he could just - mother crock of - move - god fucking dammit.

Urgh.

Shit. This was actually serious.

Dean wondered how many days he had lost, lying in this bed. How many calls he had missed. (How many calls he hadn't.)

The doctor walked in before his thoughts could spiral downwards any further.

"Mr. - Lowell, you're awake!" followed by a forced cheery smile. Dean thought that the hesitation in the name was pretty damning.

The flat look he gave the doc probably didn't help.

What is wrong with me now, was what he had wanted to ask, but what ended up coming out of his mouth was an intelligible croak that burned straight down his throat.

The doctor moved to help him drink water from a cup sat conveniently out of his reach, which Dean grudgingly allowed, before adjusting the bed for him to somewhat sit comfy.

"What is wrong with me now?"

The sudden jerk of the doc's hand, followed by downturn gaze and slump shoulders, made Dean instinctively build up walls to withstand whatever waves that would come next.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lowell."

Fuck.

And Dean drifted a little, he thought, because the doc then went on to explain what exactly did the guy mean by "sorry" but he only caught "-electrocution-", "-heart-" and "-months left-" and.

What. What.

He didn't know what kind of expression he made, but the doctor stopped talking and opted to just look at him instead.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lowell." And there was now pity there, too.

Dean was still numb and in shock and in pain and not all there but pity, he couldn't stand pity, he didn't fucking need pity and anyone who wanted to pity him could just take the damn thing and shove it up their-

The doctor, perhaps seeing the flash of anger in the hunter's eyes, bowed his head a little (in remorse? in agreement? Did Dean even care?) before swiftly taking leave.

Dean collapsed back to his bed like a puppet with cut strings.

Fuck.

\-----------------------------

Against this new, scary world, Dean wielded silence like a shield, like a weapon. Somehow, between then and now, his words had fallen off the rail, into the cracks that spread like poison barbs in his armor. Silence was his security blanket, silence was his friend, silence was his, his to embrace, his to control.

In this new world, there was not much left of things like it.

The chains, they chaffed. Sammy looked at him and smiled and laughed and cried, and he felt them tightened that much further.

Daddy was sad. Had been sad. Now Daddy was heartbreak and determination and anger so thick it was suffocating.

(Sometimes, Dean couldn't breathe.)

The ugly walls of his new home were his prison, his father his jailer, and his brother the shackles that rendered him earthbound.

Most times, Dean didn't mind. They were a family, they were all each other had left, it was enough. (It must be.)

Sometimes, though, sometimes, Dean peered out from the tiny windows to the world outside, and wondered.

Remembered what it was like to be free.

\-------------------------------

Dean checked himself out AMA within the day. He took his clothes, his wallet, his IDs, his phone, and his Baby then hightailed it out of there.

The phone stayed silent. He hadn't checked it in days. He could almost convince himself that the silence was because it was out of battery.

Almost.

(They didn't care, his mind whispered, no one did. He snarled disagreements, but couldn't bring himself to prove it wrong.)

It figured, he thought, that in the end, his body would be the one to betray him. It figured, he closed his eyes, that he would never reach thirty. It figured, and he bowed his head, that his Baby would be the only one to stand by him.

Dean closed his hands over his face, and cried.

He was dying, and oh God, it terrified him.

\---------------------------------

There were things Dean learned quickly. Monsters were real. Monsters killed his Mom. Dad hunted Monsters.

There were things Dean didn't do as well. Look out for your brother. Trust no one.

Dad did his best.

See, Dean wanted to learn fast, wanted to do his best, to prove himself. But when Sammy was crying his lungs out, when money ran dry and he had to steal for his brother, when Dad was drunk and hurt and angry, it was really, really hard to make things stick.

So Dean repeated it, days after days, after he woke up and before he went to bed, until _Dad did his best_ became a fact, a religion, and Dean its most loyal subject.

Sam didn't see the same. That, Dean supposed, was the beginning of the end.

\-------------------------------

Standing inside a church, Dean had to admit that this was ridiculous. Really, really dumb and stupid.

God wasn't real. It was a doctrine he had came to embrace. God wasn't real. Because if He was, the fact that He just didn't give a single fuck to His lowly human hurt something awful.

God wasn't real.

But Dean was dying.

And Mom, Mom used to say "Angels are watching over you" and Dean had believed, once.

So, for the first time in twenty-two years, Dean Winchester joined his hands, bowed his head, and prayed.

It was anyone's guess what he had prayed about, but the hunter walked out with his head held high and sadness etched into the lines on his face.

He was smiling.

\-------------------------------

There was a saying somewhere, Dean was sure of it, about still getting hit when you weren't even part of the war, or something. Because in the middle of this shouting match, Dean felt very much like the unfortunate fly caught between two berserk bulls.

Battered and tattered and unimportant and smashed to pieces.

Dad and Sammy were shouting at each other, again. Dean had refused to choose a side, again. He was branded a traitor by both, again.

He was getting real tired of this shit.

Dean curled himself up on the tattered motel bed, feeling the familiar rush of uselessness and bitterness. He guessed that somewhere along the way, he as himself wasn't important anymore. Now, he existed as Dean Daddy's toy soldier, as Dean Sammy's Keeper, as, judging from the shouting, the Traitor. Never Dean as Dean Winchester.

When did that happened, he wondered. When did his identity, his self got stripped away so completely that barely anyone even know him as him? (When did his family forget that he was a human being just like them?)

Dean wanted to rage against them. To scream, to cry, to shout at them. Look at me, he wanted to demand, see me. See me.

Dean didn't. Dad and Sam were shouting enough for everyone anyways.

(And he wondered when he had lost his voice to this prison, too.)

\-------------------------------

He arrived at Palo Alto on a Monday. What was this, he didn't know, but he thought he would at least. Say hi, or something. Hang out, or even go on a road trip together. Something.

Dean just wanted to see his little brother again.

And Sammy was living his dreams, it seemed. Smiling and laughing and looking so free that for a moment Dean was jealous.

But that was a touch and go, because Dean would never be the one to hold Sam back from his life.

Looking between Sam's Normal and his, between Apple Pie Life - a chance of happiness and Hunting - blood and gore and lies and deaths, Dean wondered.

What right did he have to rip that away from his little brother? What right did he have to show up and potentially ruin it all for Sam?

The answer was that he didn't. Dean was poison, and Sam had cut him off from his life long ago. Dean could be bitter and hurt for all he wanted, the truth was that he didn't matter, that no one cared.

So Dean parked his car in the shadows of the trees (always in the shadow), and watched his little brother's happiness.

Then he left.

If Dean only had few months left to live, he would damn well spent it being free.

His phone shattered on the pavement. Abandoned and forgotten. (No one cared, so why should he?)

So Dean looked at the open road, looked at the world of possibilities that had just opened up before him, and floored the car.

It felt almost like flying.

It felt free.

(That night, Sam woke up from his Normal to a world that felt wrong. He would never understand what had happened, and regretted it for the rest of his life.)

\----------------------------------

The thing about prisons was that when you spent enough time in it, it followed you wherever you go. It became a norm; you get used to it, didn't even realize it was not supposed to be there until you were truly out of it.

Dean, in that Homecoming night, had looked at what he had built, what he had achieved, and was torn.

Because what he had here, at Sonny, was everything he had dreamt of but never thought he'd had. It was like flying blind, in a way, blind, but flying nonetheless. He had flown from the proverbial small window to the world outside; escaped from the prison to the sky, the sea, the sun and everything beyond.

From Hunting to Normal, from blood and death to laughter and sunshine.

He'd never wanted to leave.

But. But. Dad was here. (Here came the jailor, better be prepared boy.)

And Sammy. Sammy. Sammy's mere presence was like a chain, snapping out so fast to wrap around his neck, leaving him shackled before he could even react.

Really, Dean had no choice at all. (Why did he even pretend otherwise?)

Sonny's eyes when he said goodbye said that much.

\-----------------------------------

It was possible that Dean was pissed. Oh scratch that, Dean was beyond pissed. Dean was livid. Dean was years of suppressed, of lingering anger burning through all his restraints and inhibitions, was white-hot flame that raged against the dying light.

(Dean was angry, because now, he could. Because there was no one to chain him down. Not anymore.)

Dean was angry for the life he lost, for everything he had given up, for this family that he had tried so goddamn hard to please, for them throwing him away anyway.

So self-righteous in their quests, the both of them. Uncaring for what caught in their ways, uncaring for who left behind.

Fuck them both.

And Dean buckled and shook, because he was flying and it felt like freedom, but why, why does the phantom chains still chaffed?

(It felt like falling.)

(Icarus, he had thought, simply just left a prison for another, one prettier and looked that more inviting.)

(But then freedom was -)

So Dean was angry and hurt and pained and he wanted others to feel it too because it wasn't fair, this wasn't fair, he was a hero he saved people but he couldn't save himself and he was free but wasn't and to be free he had to-

Then the fire burned itself out on bar fights and mindless driving within the week. Leaving behind a shell of a man with a wounded body and a dying heart.

To be free, Dean would have to-

Oh, but he was already on the way there, wasn't he?

And Dean used to be scared, then angry, but now, now?

Now Dean was tired.

\-------------------------

His family was gone, was sometimes all he could think about. His family was gone, not dead, but gone anyway, leaving him behind like he was a tool that outlived its usefulness. (Maybe he was?)

And they were gone, he was free. He was supposed to be free. It wasn't freedom. This wasn't freedom. This was sky and sun and sea and still concrete and chains and prison.

This wasn't freedom.

(People look and people see and people judge. Icarus was prideful, they'd say. Icarus was stupid, they'd whisper. Had he stayed on the path, they'd argue, had he listened to his father's words, he'd be alive.)

Dean had thought about for a long time now. Too much time to think, he'd groused. He wanted to be free. So badly. Wanted to be free from this prison of mind, wanted to be free from this blood and lies and pains that went deeper than flesh.

And to be free, he had to-

(Sometimes, life isn't worth freedom.)

So when Dean pushed the kids up the stairs and told them to 'Go, now!' and turned to face the monster wanting to kill them, taser gun pointed straight at its ugly mug, there was a splash as he stepped into a puddle.

(People never saw Icarus' flight for what it really is.)

Another splash as the monster entered, as well.

(A Rebellion.)

Dean pulled the trigger. The electricity felt like sun.

(Freedom burned, he'd soon learn.)

\---------------------------

'I want to be brave for my Mom,' Dean remembered saying once.

'Angels are watching over you,' he remembered his Mom used to say.

And he was falling, he realized. Falling from the sky, wings useless and limbs deadweight and no one there to catch him. To stop him.

He was so close, he thought, every day now. So close, to be free.

To rest.

Dean was tired. And he had done good, had fought good and now he was so tired and he just, just wanted to come home to his Mom and he was falling and he didn't stop and he was so close-

Everything was ending, and Dean was tired, but Dean would be strong.

So he spent his time doing what he wanted, what he loved, doing what he had wished for a lifetime ago and doing what he had just thought of.

Saving people, mainly. Not necessarily hunting things. Now, because he wanted to, because of who he was, not because he was under any order.

Somehow, it still felt free.

Dean went on a road trip, crisscrossing the country, taking in the people, the sights, the sounds that he didn't have the privilege of enjoying before.

In his time of dying, Dean felt peace.

And as his heart slowed, Dean parked Baby on the edge of the Grand Canyon, a sent message to Bobby and a will sitting shotgun to him.

He saw Heaven in the sunrise, and, and.

_Oh_ , he thought, _I had forgotten what home felt like_.

\-----------------------------------

Death, when it came, was like an ocean's embrace.  
.  
.  
_._  
 _Mom?_  
.  
.  
 _Welcome home, darling_.


End file.
